A category C prison in East Yorkshire, established from the merger of the former Everthorpe and Wolds prisons, Humber is a large, sprawling site with a varied mix of accommodation types, housing over 1,000 adult men. Since we last inspected, it had been designated a resettlement prison: this had led to new responsibilities, a significant increase in the turnover of the population and an increase in men nearing the end of their sentence.
This was our first inspection since 2017, and it was reassuring to find a settled and very well-led establishment. Outcomes in our healthy prison test of safety had improved to reasonably good and had remained reasonably good in respect and preparation for release. Only in the provision of purposeful activity did outcomes continue to be insufficient.
New arrivals were received well into the prison by caring staff and some supportive peer workers. Risks and vulnerabilities were carefully considered and first night accommodation was clean and ordered. The prison was calm, violence was lower than at similar prisons and despite the size of the institution, very few men were self-isolating. However, six prisoners had taken their own lives since we last inspected, although at the time of our inspection, incidents of self-harm were consistent with what we see in similar prisons. There was clear
evidence of creativity in the promotion of safety and well-being, and a variety of specialist units, such as the HOPE unit, not only addressed specific need but incentivised prisoners to behave well. The main threats to safety were illicit drugs, prisoner debt (linked to drugs) and the limited regime. Mandatory drug testing data, however, suggested that the use of drugs was lower than at similar prisons, although there was some evidence of an increase in the use of psychoactive substances.
The culture of respect in the prison was seen in the positive staff-prisoner relationships we observed, some reasonable prisoner consultation and peer support arrangements, as well work to try to improve the effectiveness of key work. Despite some overcrowding, the environment and the condition of the accommodation was reasonable and prisoners generally had good access to services and amenities. The way complaints were managed had improved and there was a better understanding of the needs of those with protected characteristics than we often see. This included the development of some encouraging partnership working to better meet the needs of young adult prisoners. Good partnership working with health providers was similarly creating good health provision and outcomes.
The prison’s weakness was its disappointing regime. Our checks revealed about 20% of prisoners locked in cell during the working day and only 40% engaged in purposeful activity with evidence of poor attendance even among those allocated. Our Ofsted colleagues found improvements in the provision of education, skills and work, but that few qualifications were gained and workshops were not challenging enough. Ofsted’s final assessment of the
overall effectiveness of the provision was ‘requires improvement’. Set against this, the prison was performing much better in delivering its primary resettlement tasks. Work to promote family ties, supported by the Lincolnshire Action Trust, was good, as was the well-led offender management unit, which made sure prisoners had reasonable contact with prison offender managers and sentence planning. There had also been a useful allocation of new resource to support resettlement services.
Humber is a competently- and capably-run institution with leaders who are open to new ideas and creative in their approach to solving problems. The governor leads from the front and her grip on the principal issues affecting the prison is impressive. Leaders involve staff and prisoners and work well with partners to ensure delivery and maintain high standards. They deserve credit for what they are achieving.
Charlie Taylor
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
January 2024
The inspectors provided a brief list of their major conclusions
What needs to improve at HMP Humber
During this inspection we identified 12 key concerns, of which six should be treated as priorities. Priority concerns are those that are most important to improving outcomes for prisoners. They require immediate attention by leaders and managers.
Leaders should make sure that all concerns identified here are addressed and that progress is tracked through a plan which sets out how and when the concerns will be resolved. The plan should be provided to HMI Prisons.
Priority concerns
- Patients with long-term conditions did not always receive the care and treatment they needed. For example, some patients did not have a care plan and some clinical reviews were not taking place.
- There were not enough education, skills or work places to meet the needs of a quarter of the prison population. Leaders and managers had plans to add additional capacity in training and industries, but recognised that this would still leave a shortfall.
- Too many prisoners were released to no fixed abode or to unsustainable accommodation. In last 12 months, approximately 10% of releases had been to no fixed abode, and only 36% to sustainable accommodation.
- Attendance was low in education, skills and work, particularly in prison industries.
- Too few prisoners gained qualifications in mathematics, particularly at level 1.
- In too many of the prison industry workshops, tasks lacked challenge and did not need prisoners to develop new technical skills or knowledge.
Key concerns
- The prison was not doing enough to tackle the behaviour of perpetrators of violence. Investigations into violent behaviour lacked detail and targets for those involved in violence were too generic.
- Violence and self-harm were often related to prisoners being in debt to others. Work to address the causes and consequences of debt among prisoners needed to be prioritised and better coordinated to reduce violence and self-harm.
- Body-worn video cameras were often not activated early enough to capture incidents in full. Leaders could therefore not be confident that all uses of force – including PAVA and batons – were always justified and proportionate.
- Some areas of medicines management were weak. Patients could not access medication reviews, the storage and governance of out-of-hours medicines was poor, and refrigerator and room temperatures were not monitored regularly.
- Some clinical areas did not meet infection control standards, creating unnecessary risk.
- There were gaps in the provision for prisoners with disabilities. This included the absence of trained prisoner carers to support them and poor paperwork for personal emergency evacuation plans.
The full reports can be read at the Ministry of Justice web site, just follow the links below:
- Inspection report (2 MB), Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Humber by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (27 November – 15 December 2023)
- HMP Humber – report (PDF) (464 kB, Report on a scrutiny visit to HMP Humber by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons (27 October and 3–4 November 2020)
- HMP Humber (1.65 MB), Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Humber (21 November, 4–8 December 2017)
- HMP Humber (PDF, 808.76 kB), Report on an unannounced inspection of HMP Humber (13 – 24 July 2015)
- HMP Everthorpe Unannounced short follow-up inspection of HMP Everthorpe (19 – 21 March 2012)
- HMP Everthorpe Full announced inspection of HMP Everthorpe (12-16 January 2009
- HMP Wolds Announced full follow-up inspection of HMP Wolds (23 – 27 April 2012)
- HMP Wolds Announced inspection of HMP Wolds (7-11 December 2009)
- HMP Wolds Unannounced short follow-up inspection of HMP Wolds (17-19 September 2007)